


Holly Anne

by allofthecaffeine



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (except they're alright-ish in s3??? i'm ignoring that), And The Wheelers Are Usually Pretty Bad Parents, Child Neglect, Child abuse/neglect, Gen, Holly Wheeler Needs Love and Appreciation, Mike Wheeler is a Good Brother, Sharing a Bed, Ted and Karen Wheeler's A+ Parenting, The Party Loves Holly Wheeler, There Aren't Enough Holly Fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-23 18:50:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19707337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofthecaffeine/pseuds/allofthecaffeine
Summary: It starts out so small, she never even suspects something’s wrong. Mom drinks sour-smelling juice from a rounded glass on a stick. Dad comes home and plonks himself down in front of the TV without a word to anyone.Holly tries her hardest to make herself invisible. She spends as much time as possible hiding in Mike’s room, and doesn’t complain when mom forgets to cook dinner or dad tells her a little too forcefully to sit on his lap and watch a movie. And, if mom grabs her a little too roughly in the bath sometimes, she never breathes a word. They don’t mean to hurt her, she’s sure, because parents might yell and scream and throw things, but they’d never hurt their children, would they?





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! So, a few words of warning before you read this fic:  
> 1\. I am testing out a new writing style. It may suck, it may not.  
> 2\. This is my first ever Stranger Things Fanifiction, although I did write a song about it after season one came out.  
> 3\. There is a teenie-weenie bit of cussing at the end. Because Mike Wheeler.

For as long as Holly Wheeler can remember, it’s always been the two of them; brother and sister, Mikey and Hoz. A united front against awkward dinners and stony silences and late-night arguments hidden poorly behind closed doors.

Some of her earliest memories are of him and his friends, getting lost in the wonderfully exciting world of Dungeons & Dragons from her perch on Mike’s lap. Dustin would make faces at her from across the board, and Will or Lucas would ask for her advice when they couldn’t decide on a move, taking her words seriously - like she was a big kid, too. Like what she said mattered to them.

Like what she said mattered at all.

* * *

Holly remembers the winter of ‘83, and how Will disappeared. She remembers Mike being gone a lot, too, and the basement being locked when she tried the door. She remembers her mother taking her to visit miss Joyce with a casserole, and walking down the hall to find a monster in one of the walls.

But Will came back, and Mike started spending time at home again. The basement door was still locked, and Holly still had nightmares about flickering table lamps and tall, slimy monsters that could climb out of walls. She tried to tell her mother, but she didn’t believe her. No one ever believed her. No one but Mike.

* * *

Things got bad between Mike and their parents when Holly was four, she remembers. He used mean words at the dinner table; started arguments with their mother, and made their father so angry, he’d slam his fist against the table and make her cry. 

(Mike always apologised to her when that happened.)

But, Holly remembers, he only ever had kind words to say to her. He’d ask how she was liking her breakfast each morning, and tell her wonderful stories about a princess in a pink dress and sneakers who could move things with her mind. And when their parents started yelling at each other, late at night when they thought she was asleep, Holly remembers tight hugs and whispered lullabies under blankets that smelled like home.

* * *

Mike’s bedroom became her safe-haven.

As the weather had gotten warmer, she remembers him sneaking off again, like he used to when Will was gone. Their parents still argued when they thought no one could hear them, acting fine whenever someone else was in the room. She couldn’t stand their pretending, not alone, so, with Mike gone, she went to the next best thing. 

His room.

Everything in it screamed _Mike_. 

Science posters on the walls, Star Wars sheets on his unmade bed. It felt like home to her, being surrounded as she was by pieces of her brother. There were three locks on his door and two on his window that made her feel safe, and he never complained when he came home to find her colouring cross-legged amongst the clutter of his floor.

Holly rode out the days in hiding, like the princess in Mike’s stories, and waited for her brother to come home.

* * *

She remembers the day she turned five, the summer just gone. 

Her mother threw her a party and invited everyone from her preschool - even Keagan Hardy, who’d gotten in trouble just two weeks before the holidays began for peeing in her schoolbag. There were presents, and cake, and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Holly remembers knowing she should probably be enjoying the attention. Remembers her mother smiling questioningly from across the room when she declined Esther Leefolt’s offer to play tag.

But it wasn’t Holly’s fault that everything was _wrong_. Her mother had obviously told the other parents to buy her dolls and dress-up costumes and happy picture books, because that’s all she got from everyone. The decorations were pink and orange, the cake strawberries and cream. 

Holly hated pink and orange. The cake was okay, but chocolate would’ve been better and her mother would’ve  _ known that _ , Holly remembers, if she’d actually been  _ listening _ when she’d told her the type of cake she wanted. She never even played with dolls or satin princess dresses because she liked to draw instead, and picture books seemed ridiculous when she’d been reading novels since Christmas.

She remembers her fifth birthday being horrible until Mikey and his friends showed up.  


The party was long since over, and Holly had been sitting in Mike’s room for over half an hour when they walked in. They were all there - Mikey, Will, Luke, Dusty, and Max. There was another girl there, too, that Holly hadn’t met before, who’d introduced herself as El. She remembers liking her immediately.

The six of them sat on the floor with her, in a loose circle, and Holly’s day had already been getting better when they’d brought out her presents. She remembers knowing without opening them that they’d be good presents,  _ proper presents _ , unlike the silly ones downstairs (which she and Mike would later take to the closest thrift store, so other little girls who did like dolls and dress-ups and picture books could have them).

Will had gotten her a set of pencils with  _ so many colours _ , she remembers, and Luke and Max had bought her a stack of sketch pads and colouring books taller than her hand was wide. From Dusty came a shoebox wrapped in pretty blue paper, filled to the brim with packets of Sour Patch Kids. Holly was grinning so much her cheeks hurt by the time Mike passed her his. El helped him wrap it, he’d told her, as she’d torn into what would quickly become her most prized possession. A hardcover box set of  _ The Chronicles of Narnia _ . 

She smiled wider.

Sitting there, on the floor of her big brother’s bedroom and surrounded by her six favourite people, Holly Wheeler came to a conclusion. No matter what happened at home, or how bad her day got, Mikey, and Will, and Dusty, and Luke, and Max, and now Ellie, would always be there to make her feel better.

She was wrong.

* * *

Holly knows something bad happened at Starcourt mall, and that her brother and his friends were there. She knows that Max’s brother died, and Ellie’s dad died, too. She knows that Ellie lives with Will now, in a different house in another town, near someplace called Michigan. And she knows, more clearly than she knows anything else, that her Mikey is sad.

School has started again and, whilst Holly spends her afternoons doing worksheets and re-reading  _ The Chronicles of Narnia _ , Mike is gone almost constantly. She knows where he’s going; knows he’s sitting up on that hill he took her to, once, with Dusty’s radio tower that lets him talk to Ellie. He returns late at night, well after dinner. The only times she’s seen him in the past week is when they’ve huddled together under the covers of his bed. 

The fighting has gotten worse since summer ended, their parents no longer bothering to pretend. Sometimes they break things downstairs, or mom will scream, or loud thuds will make the floor shake. On those nights, Mikey clings to her so tightly she can’t help wondering which one of them needs comforting.

* * *

It starts out so small, she never even suspects something’s wrong. Mom drinks sour-smelling juice from a rounded glass on a stick. Dad comes home and plonks himself down in front of the TV without a word to anyone. 

Holly tries her hardest to make herself invisible. She spends as much time as possible hiding in Mike’s room, and doesn’t complain when mom forgets to cook dinner or dad tells her a little too forcefully to sit on his lap and watch a movie. And, if mom grabs her a little too roughly in the bath sometimes, she never breathes a word. They don’t mean to hurt her, she’s sure, because parents might yell and scream and throw things, but they’d never hurt their children, would they?

* * *

Holly gets her answer on a Friday. 

It’s the beginning of October, and there are only 27 days until Halloween. She’s been keeping track of the days on her calendar - the Pooh Bear one she got from Nancy last Christmas - and has been trying to come up with the perfect costume for nearly a week. She’s sitting on Mike’s bed, re-reading  _ Prince Caspian _ , when it dawns on her.

Grinning, Holly throws down her book and dashes out of the room, down the stairs (tripping on her book bag) and into the living room. Dad is sitting in front of the TV watching a game show of sorts, and mom is sitting on the sofa with her sour juice and a technicolour magazine. Neither of them seem to notice her arrival.

“Dad,” she starts, swinging her arms excitedly by her sides. He grunts. Doesn’t take his eyes off of the television as he speaks.

“What?”

Holly grins wider, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet.

“I know who I want to be for Halloween this year!”

Dad grunts again, still not looking, but mom glances up from her reading with a barely-there smile.

“And what’s that, sweetie?”

“Reepicheep!”

At that, dad does look up.

“Reepa...what?”

“Reepicheep. He’s a mouse from Narnia, and he  _ talks _ and has a  _ sword _ , and he gets his tail cut off in a battle but Aslan grows him another one, and-”

“Holly, sweetie,” says mom, setting aside her magazine, “that sounds like a very interesting costume, but why don’t you just wear one of the princess dresses you got for your birthday? You could be Sleeping Beauty.”

Holly frowns. Glances from mom and her sour juice, to dad, who’s attention belongs firmly to the television once more. Didn’t they hear her? She doesn’t want to be a princess. She’s never wanted to be a princess.

“... but I wanna be Reepicheep,” she murmurs, gaze still flicking between the two, “not Sleeping Beauty.”

“Listen to your mother, Holly Anne.”

Her chest heats up with some emotion she cannot identify, and even though she’s not sad - doesn’t think she’s sad, anyway - tears well up in her eyes. She’s sick and tired of them not listening, of  _ no one listening _ , and in that moment, she does it. She snaps.

“I don’t want to be a princess!” She shouts, arms flying outwards in frustration, “I want to be Reepicheep for Halloween, just like I wanted dinner last night and breakfast this morning but you keep  _ forgetting _ to cook, mom, and it doesn’t even matter if  _ you _ want me to be a princess, because I’m not, and I gave away those costumes  _ weeks _ ago, and-”

“You  _ what _ ?” Her father growls, actually rising from his chair to stand in front of her, “Holly Anne Wheeler, those were  _ gifts _ . You should feel lucky you got  _ anything _ at all! Good girls don’t throw away their things like ungrateful little brats, and they certainly do not disrespect their mothers!”

Dad’s voice is loud, booming. Holly knows she should be scared of him in this moment. Distantly, she thinks she is. But she’s also so, so tired of being ignored, and the words spill out before she can stop them.

“I’ll respect you and mom when you and mom respect  _ me _ !”

The room falls silent in the aftermath of her shout, and Holly knows she’s in huge trouble seconds before it happens. Her father reaches out, grabbing her arm. Pain shoots down from his grip to her fingertips. Her bones feel tingly and she knows, she  _ knows _ this is going to leave a bruise. It's as she’s coming to this realisation that he lashes out again.

Dad’s other hand comes up, palm flat, class ring glinting on his finger as it comes flying towards her. It connects with her face with enough force to send her reeling, and she would’ve fallen had it not been for his hold on her arm. For a second, she’s numb. Like she’s floating. But then she tastes the metallic tang of blood in her mouth, feels the aching burn of his blow. It feels like her face is on fire and she cries out, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Seemingly angered by this reaction, her father hits her again.

_ Her father hits her again _ .

Because of course a parent could hurt their children.  _ Of course _ they could. This wasn’t an accident. Holly knows that; she isn’t stupid like they think she is, and and knows that tonight is the night her life is going to change forever. 

She’s still crying, terrified sobs rattling her tiny frame because the fear has hit her now. The fear has hit her, and dad releases his grip on her arm to shove her back towards the stairwell. Holly stumbles, falling down against the first step. Dad towers over her, his back to the front door.

Holly whimpers. Her breath quickens, and she fumbles up another few steps to put distance between her and her father. Just as it’s looking like he’s going to follow, to chase her upstairs with his mean, mean hands, the front door slams open behind him. He turns, and Holly leans to the side slightly to see what’s going on.

“What the  _ fuck?!? _ ”

Another sob makes its way up her throat, but this time it’s one of relief. Because that voice, that figure in the entryway, is Mike. Her Mike. And he looks furious.


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike reacts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congratulations! You get another chapter!
> 
> It's a bit shorter than the last one - only 1300 words - but! I! Am! Actually! Writing! A! Third! Chapter!
> 
> Yay!
> 
> (Its mostly to avoid doing my research report for Chemistry, but you get to benefit from my procrastination, too :-) )
> 
> *EDIT 20/05/2020*  
> Okay, so I've tried to write more for this fic, but I got like 600 words into ch3 before I realised I had absolutely no clue where I wanted to go with this. I feel that adding the extra parts I've written would ruin what is honestly a pretty good open ending, so I'll probably just leave it like this until I a) get a random, late-night spontaneous idea, or b) someone suggests a possible direction for this that just _works_ and totally completes the piece, adn I can work on it from there.

“What the _hell_ is going on here?!?!” Mike exclaims, dropping his backpack in the doorway and stepping forward. Holly watches from her place on the stairs as dad slowly raises his hands.

_Mean hands. Hands that hurt._

She bites back the whimper that bubbles up her throat at the reminder.

“ _What’s going on?!?!?!_ ” Mike yells again. His fists are clenched at his sides now, and dad is frozen, hands still held up in an obvious attempt to seem non-threatening. 

“Michael,” he exclaims, letting out a nervous chuckle, “you’re, uh… you’re home early. We weren’t expecti-”

“No _shit_ , you weren’t expecting me!”

Dad falls silent once more. Holly glances between them nervously. Her wet eyes flicker from Mike’s glare to her father’s unmoving form. She sees her window of opportunity and, drawing on all of her courage, she takes it.

Launching herself down the stairs, Holly scrambles past her father and crashes into her brother’s legs. Trembling fingers grasp at his jeans as she presses herself behind him in the entryway. Mike’s right hand unclenches, gentle fingers coming down to brush over the back of her head. She sniffs. 

He’s still glaring ahead at their father. Holly can see dad’s face now, and he looks desperate. Desperate, but not guilty.

“This is all just a misunde-” Dad starts, but Mike cuts him off again.

“Beating the crap out of my baby sister is _not_ a _misunderstanding_ ! It’s _fucking_ child abuse!”

Dad looks shaken, his jaw working. His eyes dart wildly from side to side, and Holly imagines he’s searching the room for a way to diffuse the situation. She clings to Mikey’s leg a little tighter as he ploughs on.

“I know things are bad between you and mom. Shit, I think the whole damn street knows! But I never thought you’d hurt her. Not Hoz.”

Mike isn’t yelling anymore. He doesn’t need to, if the way dad flinches against his soft-spoken words is anything to go by. Holly lets her gaze drift slightly as Mike bends down to pick her up. The runner on the stairs is skewed, just a little, and there’s a new scuff mark along the skirting board. Mom is standing just inside the living room. Her eyes are a little glassy, like the dolls’ in Nancy’s closet. She’s still holding her juice. Holly doesn’t let herself look at dad again as she winds her legs around Mike’s waist.

“Don’t wait up.”

Mike’s words are cold, hard. Like icicles, Holly thinks, and she knows they’re directed at their mother. The echoes of other times she’s heard those words, of arguments her parents have had about her siblings staying out late without calling fill the room behind them as Mike turns and grabs his bag.

The door slams shut behind them.

She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, her head dropping to rest against her brother’s chest, fingers twisting into his shirt and the bag strap slung over his left shoulder. He’s using one arm to hold her up, and she feels his other one wrap around her as he leans against the side of the house. His thumb starts rubbing small circles on her upper arm, his lips pressing against the crown of her head as she whimpers into his polo.

“It’s gonna be okay now, Hoz,” He murmurs, his voice a million degrees warmer now that it’s directed at her, “you’re gonna be okay. I won’t let him hurt you.”

Mike sways them slightly, the hand against her arm drifting up to brush back her hair. He pushes himself away from the house. Both his arms shift to hold her aloft as he walks them around towards the basement’s external door, though she’s set on her feet again whilst he pulls his bike from the bushes.

After some careful maneuvering, both she and Mike are seated. They’re pressed chest to chest, Holly zipped into his windbreaker with her legs locked around his middle. Her hands are fisted tightly into the material of his shirt as he kicks them off and down the driveway. The bike wobbles slightly, but remains mostly steady.

Mikey’s still talking to her, using gentle words the wind snatches away. But she can feel the vibrations, can still hear the soft, comforting timbre of his voice in the cooling air. He smells like late nights under heavy blankets in the sanctuary of his room and, as the minutes drag on and the distance between them and the house increases, Holly feels her heartbeat slow, her muscles relax.

It’s just the two of them on Mikey’s bike, cycling who-knows-where in the dwindling light of mid-to-late evening, and it feels more like home to her than a house ever has.

* * *

They cycle for so long, Holly wonders if they’re going to reach Narnia. The sky has gotten darker since they left the house. It’s getting harder and harder to see the colours of Mike’s shirt beneath her cheek, and the streetlights are on by the time they draw to a stop.

The building before them is short and squat, the paint chipped and faded in the dim glow of the street. Holly thinks it might be yellow in the daytime. Or maybe cream. Regardless of its colour, it seems to be their destination. Mike helps her off of the bike and sets her down on the stoop. There isn’t a car in the driveway, and the house doesn’t have a garage that Holly can see.

_Maybe no-one’s home_ , she thinks, and her suspicions are confirmed when Mike sits down beside her without knocking. 

It’s as easy as breathing for her to curl into his side. His arm shifts to draw her closer, lifting her legs across his lap so she can lean against him properly. Mike starts singing softly, the tune familiar. It’s the same lullaby he whispers in the darkness of his bedroom when their parents fight; the same one he hummed to her when she was little - still a toddler, a baby - and got soap in her eyes in the bath. He sways them slowly as the gentle words spill out into the night, and it doesn’t matter that they’re sitting in front of a strange house in an unfamiliar part of town. Her lullaby means safety, and Mikey will protect her. She knows he will. 

Holly lets herself drift off to sleep.

* * *

It gets harder and harder to decline Mrs. Henderson’s offer to stay the night every time Steve leaves. 

He has no clue when Friday night dinners became a thing. They just sort of… happened. Even when Dustin isn’t home, or the rest of the kids are staying over, Mrs. Henderson makes it her duty to draw him out of his shitty two-bedroom rental for a proper sit-down meal. It’s nice, he thinks, to have something to look forward to each week. Something to fill the silence once and awhile.

The kids don’t hang out at his house as often since Will and El moved away, the smaller group instead using Lucas’ place as their default hang-out spot. Steve won’t admit it to anyone, but it’s a little lonely without them there. He’d gotten used to the constant noise, and the scatter of hoodies, VHS tapes and snack wrappers that they seemed physically incapable of cleaning up themselves. He doesn’t hold it against them, though. His house is cramped and dated, on the outskirts of town and miles from anything interesting. With El out of hiding and living in another state, there really isn’t a need for them to populate his living room.

Which is why Steve’s very surprised to pull up the driveway after his weekly meal at the Henderson’s to find Mike Wheeler on his doorstep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...... am really hungry. And I've already eaten, like, a quarter of the box of cereal. Hm. Guess I'll just write fanfiction to take my mind off of it ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

**Author's Note:**

> So! Did you hate it? Did you love it? Let me know :-)
> 
> There might be another chapter in the works, if you're lucky, but anyone who's following my DW series will know that I tend to drop off of the face of the earth a little sometimes (*cough*6mothswithoutposting*cough*).


End file.
